Sexual Fantasies
It
would probably be no exaggeration to state that almost everyone is capable of
having sexual fantasies. However, feelings of guilt produced by a negative
sex education, stop a lot of people from being aware of their fantasies.
As well, for a long time, men seemed to have a lot more sexual fantasies than
women because the latter often suppressed their fantasies so as to avoid being
perceived as “bad girls”. The fantasies were there, buried deep within their
psyches, but inaccessible. Now that women can feel and act more naturally
like themselves and more freely express their sexuality, more women more easily
connect with their sexual fantasies and explore them.
Sexual
fantasies can manifest themselves in various ways. For many people, the
fantasies take shape as imaginary scenarios that produce sexual excitement when
the person thinks about them or when it is actualized in sex play. However,
a fantasy can be a simple image or even a thought or a feeling which awakens
sexual excitement and which, when evoked, often leads to orgasm.
Scenarios: imagine making love in the shower or on a rug in front of a crackling fire; imagine frolicking in wheat fields as you run after one another; imagine your partner bringing you to orgasm with oral caresses; imagine our partner tying us up and fondling us with great passion; imagine making love to a movie or television star.
Images: a couple kissing on a beach; a woman with an inviting smile and a bewitching look; a well-built man with great physical appeal; an image of penetration; a pair of breasts; an erect penis.
Thoughts: I am an amazon; I’m the most virile of men; it’s so good that I have no other choice but to have an orgasm.
Feelings:
I feel fulfilled, overcome with sexual pleasure; I feel that I’m fusing
into my partner, becoming one with him or her; I am floating on a sea of
tranquility like a whale on water.
Due
to their ability to awaken sexual desire and promote orgasm, the development of
fantasies is often encouraged, in sex therapy, for people who are experiencing
an absence of sexual desire. By allowing themselves to imagine sexual
scenarios, they gradually become aware of desires which were already there,
buried deep within the psyche, but that they weren't allowing themselves to
acknowledge and explore.
However,
fantasies serve not only to bring sexual excitement, they primarily serve to
express, sometimes in a very symbolic form, what we would wish to experience as
a sexual being. Directly or indirectly, fantasies say a lot about us, about our
emotional, psychological, and sexual needs. Fantasies also reflect sexual
anxieties that prevent us from easily enjoying our sexuality. It is
through the symbolic nature of fantasies that we have to understand the meaning
and scope of some people’s fantasies such as sado-masochism, fetishes,
exhibitionism, voyeurism, and others.
It
is also possible that a sexual fantasy which is nevertheless current and adequate
is more likely to produce anxiety and distress, rather than sexual excitement,
in certain people (example: imagining penetration). When this happens, it
generally indicates that there is some significant sexual problem that is
blocking sexual fulfillment.